READING:
One-year plan: Leviticus 13:47-14:57, Matthew 27:57-28:20
Two-year plan: Exodus 2:11-3:22, Matthew 16:1-12
———-
On one hand, the Pharisees asked Pilate concerning Jesus in the tomb, “Give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come, steal him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first” (Matt 27:64). Indeed, the guards made the tomb as secure as they knew how.
Later, though, after Jesus had risen from the dead, word got out—and the chief priests changed their tune: “they gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them, “Say this, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him while we were sleeping’” (Matt 28:12-13). It’s striking to me that the leaders who once sought to halt any possibility of the disciples stealing the body later turned to that very story to undercut the truth of resurrection. These words from a New Testament scholar are most gripping to me today: “They were now ensuring that precisely those stories were circulated, the only difference being that behind the stories was a risen body instead of a stolen body. The Jesus whom they had caused to be slain and put into the tomb was now a living reality; all their bribes and lies could do nothing to alter the facts.”* Amen.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Do you live in the light and hope of the resurrection?
PRAYER: “God, we praise You that Jesus overcame death.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Leviticus 15-17, Mark 1:1-34
Two-year plan: Exodus 4, Matthew 16:13-28
*Morris, L. (1992). The Gospel according to Matthew (pp. 741–742). W.B. Eerdmans; InterVarsity Press.
